Chapter 20 - The Edge of the Abyss
I felt like I had stepped out onto a ledge over an infinite void.
"You knew," I whispered.
Elena stood up, smoothing the front of her designer sweater.
She walked toward me, her posture confident, elegant, and entirely at ease.
"I told Alistair that Martin and Vanessa were too stupid to finish the job," she said casually. "They couldn't manage a corporate takeover without leaving a trail of blood and paper."
"You were working with Alistair?" My voice shook with betrayal. "You were with me for three years!"
"I was never working for Alistair, Julian," Elena replied, a cold, mocking smile playing at the corners of her lips.
She took a step closer, close enough that I could smell the familiar lavender perfume she had worn the night of the crash.
"Alistair Thorne was a greedy old fool who thought he was running the world from his library," she said softly. "He was an employee. Just like Sal Vance. Just like your pathetic cousins."
My blood turned to ice.
"Then who owns Ares Holdings?" I demanded.
Elena tilted her head, her green eyes gleaming with lethal amusement.
"Who do you think founded it thirty years ago, Julian? Who do you think taught your father everything he knew about the global market before faking his death to operate from the shadows?"
Before I could process her words, the lights inside the solarium flickered and died.
The humming electronic locks on the heavy security doors disengaged with a series of sharp clatterings.
Out in the corridor, the sudden sound of muffled gunshots echoed through the glass walls.
"Marcus!" I shouted, turning toward the hallway.
A high-caliber sniper round shattered the heavy panoramic glass behind me, spraying crystalline shards across the floor.
I whipped back around to grab Elena, but she had already stepped back toward the private terrace door.
In her right hand was a small, suppressed silver pistol, aimed directly at my chest.
Behind her, emerging from the alpine blizzard onto the terrace, stood an elderly man wrapped in a heavy fur coat.
His face was weathered by time and scarred by old fire, but the bone structure, the sharp nose, and the piercing gray eyes were unmistakable.
It was a face I had seen carved in marble in the corporate lobby my entire life.
It was Arthur Sterling.
My father.
"You always were too sentimental to rule, Julian," the man said, his deep, familiar voice cutting through the freezing wind.
Elena smiled, her finger resting lightly against the trigger.
May you like
"Welcome to the real family business, Julian," she whispered.
A red laser dot snapped onto the center of my forehead.
